Originally Posted by
FlightCosting
from my experience in obtaining aircraft certification there is a big difference between FAA and EASA attitudes. In the US Boeing and politicians hold much greater influence over the certification process ( Boeing self certification) than in Europe where the authorities always take a much harder stance in front of the manufacturer.
In short, it depends. Both EASA and the FAA had their strengths and weaknesses. In both cases, there was a tendency to 'miss the forest for the trees' - that is to become obsessed with one small aspect of the system while missing what the total system did and it's relationship to other systems and the aircraft as a whole - although at least in my experience EASA was a little less prone to this than the FAA. EASA obviously would focus on areas where the CS differed from the corresponding FAR (the list of 'significant regulatory differences' was agreed to and documented in a CRI - Certification Review Item). Both the FAA and EASA would identify areas of the design where they wanted to focus and document those - Issue Papers for the FAA, CRI's for EASA. CRI's were often, but not always, associated with the regulatory differences. One rather annoying aspect of EASA is they sometimes tried to dictate design, rather than determine if the existing design complied with the regulations. Sounds like they might be doing that again with the 2 vs. 3 AOA sensors.
I'm not surprised the FAA is working directly with EASA on resolving the grounding and returning the MAX to service - it's what I expected. EASA and the FAA always worked together (although not always real well) - and it was pretty common for an FAA person to attend the meetings we had with EASA.